I’d helped him pick out that suit this morning. I’d buttoned his shirt, and made sure his tie was straight. Just a few hours ago, my fingers had been in that hair, my lips had kissed that dimple in his chin.
He WAS mine. He had been for a long time. And I was his.
When he finished, I wanted to get up and give him a standing ovation, but that wouldn’t have been a good idea, so I just watched him pack up his laptop and answer any questions. There were plenty and he fielded them without hesitation, even making everyone laugh a few times. My redheaded charmer.
I wished there were some way to get a message to him, so I tore off a corner off my notes (which were empty because I was too distracted by him to take any) and wrote you were awesome with a little heart and folded it up under the table. He had to walk behind my chair to get out of the room, and as he did I held out the note and he grabbed it. He threw a look over his shoulder at me. There he was. That was the man I’d woken up to this morning, and the man I would go home with tonight.
Because he was mine.
Saying it in my mind gave me such delight that I wanted to stand up and announce it to everyone, but I couldn’t.
The rest of the meeting was about making some new investments to grow the company. Personally, I didn’t think it was the right time, and I said as much, but my thoughts were lost in the sea of male voices. The meeting got heated and we ended it with nothing resolved, and an agreement to pick it up again at the next meeting. I had a brief fantasy of calling them out on their scheme to get rid of my father, but I knew going forward without proof, or not letting Dad handle it first were both bad plans. So I kept my goddamn professional mouth shut.
Violet nabbed my arm as I was leaving.
“Is it always like that?” she said. “That got intense at the end.”
“You put a bunch of men in a room and make them talk about money, and that’s the result. It’s the same if you asked them about politics or religion. You’ll get used to it, I promise. They all have to get themselves heard multiple times before anything gets decided.” She walked with me back to my office.
“Men like to be heard,” she said as we paused at my door.
“Yes, yes they do.” I’d been dealing with it my whole life. Lilia was motioning at me as she talked to someone on the phone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I think I need to deal with that.”
“Sure, absolutely, see you later.” She smiled and walked back down the hall to her office. Huh. She seemed like she wanted to talk to me about something, but Lilia was still frantically waving at me.
Poor thing had an irate caller who had somehow gotten through the switchboard. It happened every now and then that a crazy got through. This one was worse than most. She put the guy on hold and explained the situation. I told her to put him through to me. This guy had picked the wrong woman to mess with.
I told him as much as he ranted and raved and started going off on how women didn’t belong working on technology and I should get in the kitchen, and so forth. I let him have it in the calmest, nicest way possible. And when he started cursing at me, I wrote down his number and then hung up.
“You okay?” I went out to check on Lilia and make sure the asshole hadn’t upset her too badly.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Her eyes were red and her nose was definitely running. “It would be completely wrong and illegal to hack into his computer and introduce a worm that would eat his hard drive, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, I have no objections, but I think we’ve had enough run-ins with the law lately. Not that you’d get caught,” I whispered so no one would overhear and then get both of us into deep trouble. Even joking about committing cybercrimes was like making bomb jokes in front of the TSA. You just didn’t do it.
“I definitely wouldn’t get caught, but it’s probably childish and vindictive. Oh well, a girl can dream.” I made a mental note NEVER to get on Lilia’s bad side. I wondered how many ex’s had their computers mysteriously crash.
“Next time that happens, put them right through to me. If they want to be jerks, they can do it to me, or my voicemail.”
“Thanks. And please don’t tell anyone about the crying and the hacking.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She finally smiled and I went back into my office. I would definitely not mess with her.
Fourteen
“I feel like I should give you a round of applause for your fantastic presentation, Mr. Blythe,” I said as soon as Lucah and I could talk freely.
“I’m glad it was to your satisfaction, Miss Clarke.” He was beaming. I loved seeing him so proud of himself.
“But there’s one thing I’m not too happy about.”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t tell me anything about it, Mr. Secretive.” I poked him in the ribs and he put his hands out to protect himself.
“I thought about it, but I didn’t want you stressing about it, and I knew that would stress me about it, and I kind of wanted to surprise you. Are you mad?” It would take a lot more than that to make me mad.